From Numbers to Narratives: Communicating Finance Information to Non-Financial Colleagues

Did you know that many of your non-finance colleagues struggle to understand financial performance measures and can feel overwhelmed by finance jargon in the workplace? Imagine you're in a meeting. To kick things off, the finance team discusses earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), free cash flow (FCF), net present value (NPV), return on investment (ROI), and cash flow. Your eyes glaze over, and you start to feel lost. Sound familiar?

If it doesn’t to you, your non-finance colleagues likely know the feeling! And that’s problematic for a few key reasons.

Effective communication of financial information is crucial for making informed decisions, fostering collaboration, and driving business success. With a better understanding of the numbers, non-financial colleagues can contribute more effectively to the company's goals.

In this blog post, we'll explore practical strategies and tips for demystifying financial information and making it accessible to everyone in your organization. You’ll discover how to simplify complex financial concepts, use visual aids, and employ storytelling techniques to make financial data more engaging and understandable.

Understand Your Audience

When translating financial data into meaningful insights for non-financial colleagues, such as those in marketing, sales, or human resources (HR), understanding your audience is essential. These professionals often face challenges with financial data:

• Unfamiliarity with financial terminology
• Difficulty interpreting metrics like EBITDA or NPV
• Uncertainty about how financial data connects to day-to-day responsibilities

Without clear communication from you, those challenges may leave your colleagues feeling overwhelmed or disengaged. You can, however, bridge this gap. Doing so requires tailoring financial communication to their level of understanding and interest—using plain language, relatable examples, and visuals. This approach not only enhances comprehension but also empowers cross-functional teams to make informed decisions and contribute more effectively to organizational goals.

Simplify Complex Financial Concepts

When communicating financial information, one of the biggest challenges is simplifying complex concepts and putting them in context that others will understand. One highly effective strategy is using plain language by replacing jargon like “EBITDA” with more accessible terms such as “earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.” If technical terms are unavoidable, provide clear, concise definitions—perhaps through a glossary or tooltips— to help bridge knowledge gaps.

Analogies are another powerful tool. For instance, comparing cash flow to a household budget makes abstract figures more relatable. Break down financial statements into digestible parts — start with revenue, then costs, and finally profit — to prevent information overload. Real-life examples, such as linking a marketing campaign to revenue growth, help to contextualize the numbers.

Additionally, using visual aids like charts and infographics can enhance understanding by translating data into intuitive formats. These techniques not only demystify finance but also foster collaboration and informed decision-making across departments.

Use Visual Aids

Visual aids are a powerful way to make financial information more accessible and engaging for non-financial colleagues. Charts and graphs, for instance, can quickly convey trends and patterns, such as revenue growth or expense fluctuations, and are far more intuitive than dense tables of numbers.

Infographics are especially effective for summarizing key takeaways and highlighting relationships. For example, infographics can help show how different departments contribute to overall costs through a pie chart.

Dashboards also offer a dynamic overview of key financial metrics. With it, users in roles like marketing and HR can monitor performance indicators relevant to the work required of each role. With modern corporate performance management (CPM) such as OneStream or business intelligence (BI) tools such as Power BI, you can also create interactive dashboards. That capability enables users to explore data at their own pace.

Another key aid is visual comparisons, such as bar charts contrasting revenue and expenses across time periods. These comparisons help clarify relationships and support better decision-making. Finally, interactive tools that allow users to drill down into specific data points foster a hands-on learning experience, making financial insights more tangible and relevant.

These visual strategies not only simplify complex data but also empower non-financial teams to engage with financial information confidently and effectively.

Utilize Effective Communication Strategies

To truly engage non-financial colleagues with financial information, you must go beyond simplification and incorporate dynamic communication strategies that foster understanding and retention. Interactive methods like Q&A sessions, workshops, and hands-on activities create opportunities for colleagues to ask questions, apply concepts, and build confidence in interpreting financial data.

Through regular updates and progress reports, teams can also stay better informed about financial performance and how their work contributes to broader business goals.

Storytelling is another powerful strategy. By framing financial data within a narrative, numbers become more relatable and memorable. Examples include the journey of a product launch or the impact of a cost-saving initiative.

These approaches not only make financial communication more engaging but also cultivate a culture of transparency and collaboration. In such a culture, everyone feels empowered to contribute to financially sound decision-making.

Employ Storytelling Techniques

Storytelling is a powerful strategy for making financial information more relatable, memorable, and impactful for non-financial colleagues. By framing data within a narrative, you provide context that helps colleagues connect emotionally and intellectually with the numbers. Think about how you might tell the story of a company’s financial journey through a challenging quarter or a successful product launch, for instance.

By introducing characters, such as a fictional employee navigating financial decisions, you can humanize abstract metrics and illustrate their real-world implications. Highlighting the impact of financial decisions (e.g., how improved cash flow enabled investment in employee development)reinforces the relevance of financial health to everyday work.

Finally, real-life examples and case studies further ground financial concepts in practical applications, helping colleagues see how their roles influence and are influenced by financial outcomes.

These storytelling techniques transform financial communication from a data dump into a compelling narrative that resonates across departments.

Leverage the Right Tools and Resources

Equipping non-financial colleagues with the right tools and resources is essential for fostering financial literacy and enabling confident decision-making. Financial software such as CPM platforms and BI software, can present key metrics in a clear, interactive format. With such software, users can explore data relevant to their roles at their own pace. These tools help demystify financial performance by visualizing trends, comparisons, and progress in real time.

In addition to software, offering access to training programs or courses can significantly boost financial fluency across departments. Internal workshops or external platforms like Coursera or LinkedIn Learning are good examples of the options out there.

Internal resources also play a vital role. Finance team support, quick-reference guides, glossaries, and explainer videos can provide just-in-time learning and reinforce understanding. By combining these tools and resources, organizations create an environment where financial information is both accessible and actionable for all employees, regardless of their background.

Use Case Studies and Examples

Case studies and real-world examples are invaluable tools for simplifying financial concepts and demonstrating their relevance to non-financial colleagues. Especially, sharing success stories can illustrate the practical benefits of financial literacy. Sharing how a cross-functional team used financial dashboards to identify cost-saving opportunities or how a marketing initiative led to measurable revenue growth are good examples.

These narratives highlight what worked well (e.g., plain language, visual aids)and lessons learned (e.g., importance of early stakeholder engagement, clear definitions of financial terms). By analyzing both the strengths and shortcomings of past communication efforts, organizations can refine their approach and build a more financially fluent workforce.

These examples serve as relatable, concrete illustrations that bridge the gap between abstract metrics and everyday decision-making. In turn, the illustrations reinforce the idea that financial understanding is not just for finance teams — it’s a shared responsibility that drives collective success.

Conclusion

In today’s data-driven workplace, bridging the gap between financial complexity and cross-functional clarity is more important than ever. Effective financial communication thus requires a few key strategies:

• Understanding your audience
• Simplifying concepts
• Using visual aids
• Applying storytelling techniques
• Leveraging the right tools and resources
• Using case studies and examples

Each strategy plays a vital role in making financial information accessible, engaging, and actionable for non-financial colleagues.

Remember, the goal is to demystify financial information and empower everyone in your organization to contribute to the company's goals. So, the next time you're in a meeting discussing financial metrics, take a moment to consider how you can make the information more accessible. By doing so, you'll foster financial fluency with non-financial colleagues. That fluency helps ensure they understand the numbers and thus make informed decisions that play a more active role in the company's success.

Ready to turn your numbers into narratives? Discover how OneStream’s unified platform helps deliver intuitive dashboards, real-time insights, and interactive reporting that speak to every stakeholder, no matter their financial background. We’d love to help you start transforming your financial communication today.